St John Baptist De La Salle

    Widely acclaimed as the “Father of modern Pedagogy”, St John Baptist de la Salle was the eldest son of a councilor of Reims (northeastern France0. Born on 30 April 1651, he was made a canon of the cathedral there at the age of 16 and ordained to the priesthood at 27. A model of piety and humility, he was gradually his –work.

    At that time Jansenism-whose principal focus was the denial of man’s ability to resist temptation and the rejection of the doctrine that Christ died for all men –had taken a solid hold throughout France; the constant foreign and internal was had brought famine, ruin and untold suffering to the people; school were neglected, and ignorance and vice abounded. France with such desperate conditions, John de la Salle rejoiced at being asked to help found two free schools for the poor at Reims. He took a personal and active interest in the teachers and their methods, encouraged them, housed and fed them under his own of, and so guaranteed them against excessive expenses which might have consumed their meager earnings.

    Such was the informal, almost unconscious beginning of the Institute of the Brothers of Christian School, founded about 1680 on simplicity, mortification and absolute reliance upon Divine Providence. To John the education of the poor was an urgent apostolate. Years of trial and persecution later, the apostolate finally blossomed into the flourishing and world-wide religious Congregation that it is today.

    St John Baptist de la Salle is ranked among the world’s greatest thinkers and educational reformers for having organized the primary public school system and secondary education along new and revolutionary lines in keeping with the needs of modern times. There were to be no Priests in his institute but only bother, who completely consecrated their lives as “educators of the mind” and “apostles of the soul”. Above all he instead on the teaching of the Faith in Catholic School and the use of the vernacular instead of Latin in School texts, so that through the pupils’ reading ability the parents at home might also receive an education in Christian doctrine and morals. He favoured the so called “simultaneous method” of instruction by which students re graded and grouped according to their respective capacities.

    For the children of the wealthy, who would be prototype for all such secondary School. In addition he also founded the first Christian “Sunday Academy” for working adults, in which geometry, drawing and architecture were taught besides the usal branches of learning. John also instituted normal school for training young teachers in his new methods.

    His writing embrace book on he fundamentals of scientific pedagogy on Christian behaviour and manners, a reader and catechism on Christian doctrine, treatises on the religious life, on the method of mental prayer and numerous meditations-all simple, direct and vigorous in approach.

    John Baptist de la sale who died on 7 April 1719 was canonizedin 1900 by Pope Leo XIII and declared patron of all teachers in 1950.

Reflection: “Zeal with prudence, light with charity, and firmness with gentleness” (St John Baptist de Salle).